Postmodern Album Covers: Katy Perry - Teenage Dream And Will Cotton - Cotton Candy Sky

Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

Above is the album cover for Katy Perry's third studio album. Similar to the Bow Bow Wow's album there is only the main image, one convention of album covers. Katy Perry had said to a magazine that she wanted to only show the art of the album art and not have distractions like the titles and bar codes. The creator of this album artwork is Will Cotton, he is also one of the producers on of the music video 'California Gurls' by Katy Perry. This image is easily recognisable from the scene from the California Gurls music video. 

Will Cotton - Cotton Candy Sky

This is a painting created by Will Cotton. Katy Perry had seen this piece of art and wanted to have a similar piece for her album cover. As both the pieces of art are by the same artist it is not a mockery, the album cover is simply another piece, a celebration of the original piece of art.

Postmodern Album Covers: Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy and Édouard Manet - Le Déjeuner Sur I'herbe

Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy

This is the album cover for Bow Wow Wow. This album cover does not have any of the conventions of album covers except the main image. This album cover does not have any words or barcodes on the album. They want to focus on the art and not the words associated with the band and album. They have also emphasised this by increasing the saturation dramatically of the album cover to draw the audience into the cover.

This album cover has reference to the modern art of Manet's piece - Le Déjeuner Sur I'herbe. I believe this is not a mock of the art, instead a homage, a celebration of Manet's piece.

Édouard Manet - Le Déjeuner Sur I'herbe

In this piece of art we see a woman and two men sitting down in front of a lake with another person in the background washing some clothes in the lake. The woman in this piece of art is naked and is sitting with two dressed men. This imagery is very sexual and an unusual composition at this time in the art period. The woman is also looking directly at the camera which is very provocative and sexual.

In front of the woman is a basket of fruit which   

Postmodern Album Covers: The Clash - London Calling And Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

In today's media class we continued to talk about postmodernism and how nowadays media texts can be seen as postmodern. Today we were discussing postmodernism in album covers and looking at some postmodern album covers. I thought I would post this to my blog and later I could compare and contrast some of these postmodern covers with my own album artwork. 

The Clash - London Calling

Firstly this album cover is very traditional when looking for the conventions of an album cover. The album art has the typical album name, artist/band name and a main image that you would expect to find on any album cover.

The main image is of a man, the lead artist, smashing a guitar on the floor. This shows a sense of rebelliousness and aggression. It is also a stereotypical image that we associate with the rock genre, smashing instruments and objects to pieces. The shot also looks in action/in motion, we know exactly how the image would turn out if it were a movie still a few seconds later. This shows the energy coming from the image and the blurring effect also adds to the illusion that the image is in motion. The image is also in black and white which gives us that feeling that the album is serious and also not entirely happy, we also feel the conviction and the classic feel to the past from the image not being in colour.

The font is a complete contrast to the image. For a start the font is colourful, bubbly, loud and playful compared to the seriousness of the image. The image and the font together is a juxtaposition. This use of juxtaposition pulls the audience in and holds their attention, once you look at the cover it is difficult to look away from it as it is so involving.

This album cover is different to any album cover I have come across however what makes it postmodern is the fact that it is a homage of Elvis Presley's first album.

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

As you can see both album covers are pretty much the same apart from the obvious changes made to the album cover and main image. The reason this is a homage of Elvis Presley's first album is because of the seriousness of the photo and the layout of The Clash's artwork. They are not mocking the original album artwork idea they are simply celebrating the original text.